An Act of Abandonment
by Asidian
Summary: Matt's issues are buried deep. Foggy proves remarkably adept at laying them to rest - right up until the day he walks out Matt's door. (The "A Lot to Unlearn" series: Hands, An Act of Abandonment, Forward, and Hindsight's 20/20)
1. Chapter 1

Author's Notes: This fic takes place in the same continuity as "Hands." You can read it first for more background information, but it's not vital.

* * *

An Act of Abandonment

* * *

It's been a long night. Beneath Matt, the sheets are twisted – cheap cotton, worn and pilling. The threads are rough on his skin, and the wrinkles, and the cheap polyester of the comforter.

He's nine years old, and he has school tomorrow, and sleep's never seemed further away.

"You worthless bitch!" bellows a man's voice, somewhere in the distance, with perfect clarity. There's a crack and a wavery little wail in response, and Matt presses the pillow down hard on top of his ear. He holds the other flush against the mattress, and even with the pressure on both sides, they still keep nothing out.

The man keeps yelling, and down the street, a cat yowls – thin and high, as though in pain. A bar three blocks away is packed to capacity; Matt catches bits of the music through the open windows, the _whud_ , _whud_ of the bass and a tinny melody line.

He fights not to listen – fights to clear his mind enough for sleep.

But sooner than Matt believes possible, a rumble fills his chest up, heard and felt both at once.

He knows that sound all too well. It's the garbage truck on their street, beginning its morning rounds. The deep thrum of it shakes in his head, and that means he's done it again: wasted the whole night awake and aware. School today will be spent groggy and drowsing, with a headache throbbing in and out behind his eyes.

If he could see, he knows the sky would be a pale grey, fading slowly to delicate eggshell blue. He could look out his bedroom window and crane his neck, catch a glimpse of the moon between the tops of the buildings.

It's a sight he's seen a thousand times – and he calls it to mind now, that perfect white disc floating high above the city.

In the other room, Matt hears his father shuffle out of bed, off toward the bathroom. He hears a trickle, and then running water, and then the shuffle again, toward the kitchen this time. There's the clatter of dishware, the hiss of steam, the soft _tink_ of a spoon on the table, and then knuckles rap at the door.

"Matty?" says Matt's father. "You up?"

He could close his eyes – pretend to be asleep. Instead he says, "Yeah," and shoves himself up so the blankets fall into a warm pool around his waist.

The door clicks open, and those shuffling steps come up to the bed. From the kitchen, there's a whiff of oats, the sweeter scent of raisins: the off-brand oatmeal from the cabinet above the stove, already made.

"Breakfast," Matt's father says. "Better hurry before it gets cold."

Matt says nothing in reply. He's miserable, and his head hurts, and he wants nothing more than to stay in bed forever.

There's a slow indrawn breath, an even slower release. "Rough night?"

"Yeah," says Matt, voice a little scratchy.

His father shifts the mattress when he sits, makes the springs creak with his weight. He drapes an arm around Matt's shoulder, heavy and warm, and pulls Matt up against him. The sound of his heartbeat is low and steady, clearer than a church bell.

And for awhile, that's all there is: the rhythmic pulse of life, and the clean-sharp tang of cheap soap, and the way his father's pajama shirt feels against the side of his face, soft and well-worn.

They stay that way for a long time, until at last a big hand ruffles Matt's hair. "Time to get a move on, Matty."

When he feels his way to the kitchen table and slides into the chair, he discovers that the oatmeal is already cold – and Matt doesn't mind at all.

Three days later, Battlin' Jack Murdock stands victorious in the ring, and the crowd roars his name.

Three days later, a bullet sends Matt to St. Agnes.

In the years to come, Matt will look back on the cold-oatmeal morning the same way he remembers the moon: fondly, with longing, as a precious relic of childhood.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Notes: Matt's prayer in this chapter is an actual prayer, from which I took the title of this fic: "An Act of Abandonment."

* * *

An Act of Abandonment - Chapter 2

* * *

The ceiling of the church at St. Agnes is high.

Matt knows because the hymns all rise, up and up, toward heaven.

They get caught in the rafters and echo back, pushed down toward earth, and Matt wonders sometimes if the nuns know that those reverent harmonies don't reach as far as they're supposed to.

The pews are hard, polished wood – chestnut, Matt thinks, from the way the grain feels beneath his fingertips. On Sunday, the children of the orphanage sit, then kneel, then sit again at all the right times.

The Father's voice is calm and throaty, and he tells Matt that the Lord is his shepherd, and he shall not want. Somewhere beyond the grounds of St. Agnes, a girl is sobbing, voice thin and scared: "Mommy? Mommy, why won't you get up?"

Matt thinks of an alley, and his father's familiar lined face, growing cold like the oatmeal on a kitchen table. His eyes begin to sting, and the lashes dampen at the corners, warm and prickly. He goes to his knees again, right on schedule.

He bows his head, and his lips shape the familiar words: "Oh my God, I thank you and I praise you for accomplishing your holy and all-lovable will without any regard for mine."

Far away, the girl has begun to wail – the high, wordless shriek of a shattered heart.

Matt knows how she feels.

* * *

He walks beside Stick, and he takes two steps for every one swing of his mentor's long legs. His palm is empty without the cane; he misses the _tap_ , _tap_ of it running along before him, checking the way.

Stick says he's ready to go without it, though, and Matt – Matt wants to prove him right.

The park is crowded. It's an early Saturday afternoon, in early summer, and there's a breeze to cut the sun's heat. It carries the smell of a hot dog cart: sweet relish and spicy mustard, and the meaty aroma of roasting sausage.

There are swings just off the path – a creak of leather and chain, the steady rhythm when a father's hands push a small back and sneakered feet kick upward.

"Harder, daddy!" screams a voice laced with delight. "Push me harder!"

Matt's face tilts toward the scene, unconsciously. He traces the path of the wind through the chain and the warmth radiating off the metal structure and the vibrations from the child's throat, all of it at once both ordinary and captivating. The boy on the swing shrieks laughter, and tips his head back, and he leans into the up-swing like he's not afraid to fall.

"You listening, kid?" says Stick's voice, ahead of him, gravelly and brisk.

"Yeah," says Matt. With an effort, he turns back toward the path.

But he hasn't been listening. He's been concentrating too much on one thing and let all the rest slip away.

The bicyclist rushes by on his left, too close, and clips him on the elbow. Matt twists with the bike's momentum, staggers a step, and goes to one knee. The fingers of his right hand find the point of impact: torn skin and the warm beginnings of blood.

"Watch where you're going!" the bicyclist hollers back, and rings his bell too late – a bright, sharp chime.

Stick's stopped walking: a sudden absence of footsteps, the irritated click of teeth against tongue that always means the man is losing patience.

"You want to waste my time, we'll go back to St. Agnes," he says. "Otherwise, get your head out of your ass and pay attention."

Matt's elbow is throbbing – beginning to swell. He'll have a new bruise, he thinks.

He clambers up from his knees, rubs his sweating palms against the worn fabric of the jeans. "I will," he says. "I have been. I just slipped a minute."

Stick snorts, non-committal, and turns to leave.

* * *

"With my whole heart, in spite of my heart, do I receive this cross I fear so much," Matt whispers into his pillow.

His hands are clamped over his ears, but somewhere, a TV is on. "That's what I been telling you!" says a girl's voice, nasal and indignant – and the laugh track cuts in with genial, bland approval.

Matt tells his pillow: "I keep it with gratitude and joy, as I do everything that comes from your hand." His own hands make fists in the blankets, squeezing until his knuckles ache.

Now a cheesy announcer promises he'll never drive a better car. Now three words of a jingle, kitschy and upbeat, is selling soda. Now a man's voice bellows: "In this corner of the ring, weighing in at 178 pounds, Crusher Creel!"

The crowd swells: a thousand voices, raised as one, drifting up and up like hymns in a church.

Matt thinks, with perfect clarity: why couldn't I have kept my mouth shut?

Somewhere, a fight is starting, the sportscaster talking through every blow.

Matt buries his face in the pillow: smells detergent, and cotton, and his own shampoo, cheap and bland. "And I shall strive to carry it," he whispers, voice shaking just a little, words muffled by the fabric, "without letting it drag."

* * *

"I can't," Matt says. "I can't."

But that's as far as he gets, because the choke-hold cuts off his air again.

He sucks a half-breath in, and it burns in his lungs. He thinks that there was a trick to this, a move to get out of it somehow, but panic's creeping up his spine. Instead of calculated motion, he claws at Stick's arm. Instead of rational thought, he twists and yanks away.

Stick tightens his hold, muscles like steel beneath dry, wrinkled skin, and Matt tries to cough. He coils around and digs his heel into Stick's side – tries to get enough leverage to force himself free – but his foot slips, and he's scrabbling at the floor with it, instead.

His feet make a frenetic sort of percussion on the wood, and Matt's fingernails are catching at Stick's arm now, desperate, scratching in earnest.

His head is buzzing, and the world narrows until all that's left is pain, and pressure, and the frantic need for air. His thoughts are fuzzy around the edges, and he makes a strange whining noise, somewhere at the back of his throat.

Just like that, Stick lets him go.

He falls face down against varnish and pine, and the relief when he gasps in that first, urgent breath is almost enough to cover the wash of shame when Stick says, "What the hell was that, kid? You'd think we started last week."

* * *

He knows the slick surface of it, foil on one side, wax paper the other. There are slight dips where his fingertips fit just right: perfect circles that he knows by heart.

He keeps it in the drawer by his bedside, a creased ice cream wrapper worn in places from his touch.

When he aches at night, or his lip is swollen fat, or he's lied to one of the Sisters about where he got his newest bruise, Matt take it out and cups it in his palm as though it were made of crystal. He runs the pads of his fingers over it reverently, the way he once touched the red silk of his father's fight clothes.

Matt thinks of that first day, sitting in the sun, ice cream sweet and melting on his tongue. He thinks of a rough voice, and hard words, and he promises himself that next time, he'll do better.

* * *

"Get up."

Matt's bleeding. He can feel the slow trickle of warmth down his chin, hear the drops when they hit the rough concrete of the floor.

"Get up."

He's never thought about the way a fractured bone might sound, edges rubbing up against each other. It's like sandpaper on brick. Every time the muscles in his arm shift, he hears it again, and the pain makes him retch.

"Get _up_."

Matt closes his eyes, waiting for the wave of dizziness to pass. Then he braces his legs under him, and he grits his teeth.

And he gets up.

* * *

When the door closes, the little click sounds like the last shovelful of dirt on a grave.

Stick's footsteps are fading down the hall, and the crinkle of paper crushed in unforgiving fingers rings loud in his ears.

Matt thinks, with perfect clarity: why couldn't I have kept my mouth shut?

* * *

The floor of the church is stone, cool to the touch, pockmarked with countless tiny scars – worn down from thousands of shoes that have passed here before him.

It's hard beneath Matt's knees, and he stays there until he aches with it, head bowed, shoulders hunched. He wants to pray, but his lips can't find the words.

Far away, in someone else's life, a man's voice is singing. It drifts in through the open church doors with the crisp, fragrant breeze. It's low and scratchy, a half step out of tune. There's no beauty in it, no art, but it's a deep voice, gentle, and it croons a lullaby to some nameless child.

"Matthew?"

The click of heels on the church floor brings him back to the here and now. They're uneven steps: a soft, wavering waddle, and then Sister Sarah is beside him. She smells of rich garden soil, of parsley and rosemary, of the sweat that comes from working in St. Agnes' garden half the evening.

"Yeah?" His voice is strange and hoarse, even to his own ears.

She comes closer, the stiff fabric of her habit a soft _swish_ , _swish_ in the high-vaulted chamber. She's directly to the left of him; if he reached out, he could take hold of her hand.

There's a hesitation before she replies – the briefest of pauses, as though she isn't certain what she wants to say. For an instant, just one, Matt thinks that she'll sit beside him, there on the cold church floor. He thinks that she'll put an arm around him the way his father used to, once upon a time.

Instead she says, "It's almost bedtime. Finish up in here, okay? Father Johnson wants to lock the doors."

"Okay," says Matt.

In the distance, that far-off lullaby has gone silent.


	3. Chapter 3

Columbia has a beautiful campus.

Matt knows because he's heard it from a member of the admissions office, and in off-handed comments that drift to him across the wide walkways, and in the words of the talkative young lady in his Federal Litigation class. He knows because the air smells of fresh-cut grass, clean and new, and that grass is plush and even under his shoes, giving with every step.

There's a rustle of fabric – an ungainly _whump_ , as Foggy lets the blanket unroll all at once. Then the cloth snaps and shudders, shaken out, and settles onto the lawn with a whisper of finality.

"Fresh air and sunshine," Foggy announces, as though he's an explorer discovering both for the first time. "Just what the doctor ordered."

"I'm not sick," Matt points out, for what's probably the seventeenth time. Across the stretch of lawn, he can hear voices chattering, shooting questions back and forth: quizzing each other for the upcoming exam in Civil Procedure. He should be in their dorm room right now, studying for that exam.

"Nope," Foggy agrees, and sets a hand on Matt's back, steering him toward the square of blanket. "But it's the weekend. And dude, you've been holed up in in the dorm so long I'm starting to think you're hiding out from the mafia."

Matt feels his lip quirk up, a slight incline. "Too bad news of this exciting double life hasn't reached _me_."

"It's cause you're too busy walling yourself in with textbooks." Foggy leans in – the sudden waft of the butterscotch candy his mother sent in the care package last week. "Buddy, I've read this one. The Amontillado's not in there."

Matt laughs, despite himself, a soft chuff of surprise.

Foggy sets a hand on his back, fingers spread, the warm shape of them plain through Matt's shirt. The pressure is light – guiding, not forceful – and Matt allows it to steer him forward two steps, until the grass under his feet is cushioned by blankets.

"Look," Foggy's saying. "Just an hour. Two hours, tops. Get some sun, get some air. Hell, study out here if you have to."

Matt sits, feeling prickly growing things beneath soft wool. Nearby, the walkway is trimmed with roses; the scent of them is in the air, low and fragrant.

"Only, like – don't, this time. Bring a book next time, but seriously. Even thinking about that paper on Marbury vs. Madison is banned." Foggy sits beside him – wool on denim, a surge of butterscotch – and stretches out his legs. Matt can hear the wriggle when his toes pry at the imitation leather of his shoes, kicking them off. "I'll know. An alarm'll sound and everything. Thought police – very 1984."

Matt sets his cane down in the grass, at the edge of the blanket. After a moment, his fingers find the laces on his own shoes, picking and pulling, until the constrictive squeeze of them is gone.

"Well," Matt concedes, fondly, "if there's an _alarm_."

* * *

It's Friday night, and they've left behind the buzz of neon and the tinny music from the jukebox.

"You can, you know," Foggy tells him, apropos of nothing.

Matt turns toward his roommate and tilts his head a little. "Huh?" he says, intelligently – because, honestly, he's had about three too many, and the alcohol's a dull burn in his chest, and everything's gone sort of fuzzy at the edges.

Foggy's lying down on his own bed, half off; one arm dangles aimlessly from the side, motion through air as he waves it to make his point. "Faces," Foggy prompts. He smells like discount beer on tap – barley and yeast – and he's had too many, too. Matt knows because he slurs the s's a little, rounds out the vowels when he's drunk. "It's got to be weird, right? Without any idea at all."

Matt finishes hanging his jacket on the wall hook, and he pauses to search for the line of conversation this thought's connected to. It's buried at the beginning of the night, when they were both a lot more sober – a passing comment, there and gone. He wonders if Foggy's been thinking about it all this time.

"It was at first," Matt admits, quietly.

Hair whispers over fabric as Foggy turns his head. "Not anymore?"

"You get used to it." Matt's fingers have found his tie. They slip into the crevices in the fabric and begin to work it free.

"Well," says Foggy, after a beat of unreadable silence. "Offer stands, if you ever wanna check." His heartbeat doesn't even flicker from its rhythm, strong and solid as a mountain. His breathing's relaxed and even, and he waves his arm again – this time, a sloppy sort of scooping motion. "I'm making come-hither gestures," he narrates helpfully. "They're awfully inviting."

The tie slithers free, and Matt – Matt's glad for something to close his hands around. The fingers tighten all at once, convulsively.

He remembers the searing smell of ammonia, the too-loud beep of a heartrate monitor, and his father's face, lined and reassuring. He remembers the kitchen table hard under his arms, books in a language he can't read yet spread out before him, and his father's blood on his fingers, drying sticky to the touch.

He remembers an alley, with a beloved face cold beneath his fingers.

"I," Matt says, and swallows. "I –"

"But not _super_ inviting," Foggy interjects, hastily. "Not so inviting you wouldn't take me up on it without the burning need to experience my rugged handsomeness." His heartbeat's sped up, after all – and that's Matt's fault. How hard is it to give him an answer?

"You know what?" Foggy tells him. "Take my word for it. I've got the manliest of manly jaws, and one of those little chin divots, like they give all the heroes in comic books."

Matt turns, and takes three steps toward Foggy's voice. The tips of his fingers brush Foggy's cheek just as he opens his mouth to add more, and Matt can feel it when he closes it again, cuts off the words with a little click of teeth.

The heartrate hasn't gone down – the _thump_ , _thump_ , _thump_ of it is loud in his ears – and Matt bites at his lip to keep his own under control. He hasn't done this for – years. For half his life.

No one's offered.

The pads of his fingers trace the shapes: a sturdy forehead, wide-set eyes, eyebrows in a soft, indistinct curve. Round cheeks, an upturned nose, prominent sideburns. A strand of hair falls into Matt's path, and he follows it back to the scalp, testing the length of it: long, longer than he expects. There's no chin divot, but there's a goatee – a small patch just below Foggy's lower lip.

It's – jarringly intimate, the whole experience. Matt finds himself grateful that they've both had so much to drink; this will be a little less embarrassing, in the morning.

"Thanks," he says, at last, and takes his hands away. He's felt the laugh lines beginning at the brackets of Foggy's mouth – thinks he knows, now, how that face will warm up when a certain sort of teasing creeps into his roommate's voice.

He hadn't thought that would make such a difference. Somehow it does.

"See?" Foggy tells him, "Just like I said. You could've taken my word for it."

Matt's smiling, and he can't seem to rein it in. A part of his chest feels lit up inside, in a way it hasn't since – a vanilla ice cream cone, over a decade ago. The realization sets a little whisper of concern racing in him, a cautious voice that says to slow down, sober up, look for the other shoe, because it always drops.

But all he says is: "It was better this way," and he means it.


	4. Chapter 4

There are five days left until Christmas.

Columbia's already empty for the winter holidays; through the dorm room window, the sounds of chattering students and heels on walkways are greatly diminished. No one's working on a paper down the hall with the rapid clatter of fingers on a keyboard; no music drifts to Matt in snatches of lyrics or the backbeat of drums.

On Foggy's half of the room, a suitcase is open on the bed, and Foggy's stuffing clothes into it – crumpled shirts and rolled-up jeans. Matt hears the nudge and shift of fabric every time he shoves something new aside to make room for the rest of it. There's paper rustling, too: the presents for Foggy's parents, wrapped three days ago, now tucked inside with the rest.

"You sure you're sure?" Foggy asks again. "Always room for one more."

"I'm fine," Matt tells him – and means it. It's been years since he's had a family to spend the holidays with. If he thinks back hard enough, he recalls a plastic tree, short and shabby, and his name on tags in his father's clumsy hand. But mostly, that's been supplanted by newer memories: solemn Christmas songs in high young voices, sermons in the chill chamber of St. Agnes' church, distant words that reach his ears on Christmas morning, loving and carefree, while Matt sits on a pew with other children who have nowhere else to go.

"Really," Matt tells him, and dredges up a smile. He taps the pages of the open book spread out on the desk before him. "I need to catch up on my reading, anyway."

Foggy snorts. "With all the time you spend buried in those books, you'll be done with the Library of Congress before we pass the bar."

But he doesn't ask again, and that's – probably for the best, honestly. Certainly doesn't make Matt's chest go a little tight.

Matt's fingers trail their way across the page, reading about landmark legal decisions and obscure statutes. He concentrates on the facts, and he doesn't listen to Foggy finishing his preparations. He's midway through Gideon v. Wainwright when Foggy scoops something off the bed, fingernails on polyester, and says, "I'm gonna grab a soda from the vending machine. Want anything?"

"No, thanks," Matt tells him, and Foggy lets himself out into the hall.

It's too quiet with him gone. It's a preview, Matt realizes, of how the winter holidays will play out, without his roommate's ever-present chatter. If he concentrates, he can just make out the murmur of Foggy speaking, down on the second floor, near the vending machines – but he wills himself to focus on other things, tries not to eavesdrop.

Ten minutes later, the door creaks open and Foggy ambles back in, footsteps leisurely. There's the hiss-pop of a soda can opening. "Hey, Murdock," he says. "Pack your bag."

Matt's fingers still on the page; he tilts his head, uncertain. "My bag?"

"Sure," says Foggy, "Cut your reading list down by half and it might even fit. I've got room, too." He crosses to his suitcase, and there's a crinkle as he prods the contents. "For, uh. One or two, if you need the space."

"One or two," Matt repeats, blankly – feels as though he's a recording, just echoing back what's said.

"Books," Foggy clarifies, in a tone just shy of a triumphant. "Bring them with you. You might not be able to haul the _whole_ Library of Congress, but winter break's not that long, anyway." There's a pause, during which Foggy drinks from the soda can: the fizz of carbonation, the smell of artificial fruit-flavoring, the soft sound of his throat working when he swallows.

Matt uses the time to press his hands against the top of his desk, and discovers they're shaking a little. He can think of about thirteen different reasons not to go, starting with the fact that it's not fair – not fair for him to show up unannounced, for him to trail along in Foggy's wake, intruding into a place he doesn't belong.

"Foggy," he begins – but by then his roommate's lowering the soda again, interrupting cheerfully.

"Too late, dude," he announces, and claps Matt on the shoulder. "I called my mom. Your spot at the table's reserved."

* * *

"No," says Foggy, "no, no, it's gonna be great."

His hand's soft against Matt's elbow, guiding – and Matt should tell him, he really should, that he can manage without.

But it's – nice, like this, to have Foggy next to him, solid and dependable. Every time he thinks what it might be like to confide in his best friend, to admit the extent of his own abilities, the thought of losing _this_ stops the words dead in his throat.

Matt's wished too many times that he'd kept his mouth shut. It's a mistake he plans never to make again.

"It's going to be a disaster," Matt offers up instead, keeping to the conversation at hand.

"But they're _hot_ , Matt," Foggy tells him, earnestly, ignoring the fact that neither of them speak French, and the new exchange students speak almost no English. "Like, molten rock at the center of the Earth hot."

Foggy's fingers are plump, and his heartbeat races through the contact point: elevated, the way it always is when he's talked himself into some impulsive new scheme.

Matt's lips quirk at the corner, fond and exasperated. "Literally the only sentence I know in French is the chorus of Lady Marmalade."

" _V_ _oulez_ - _vous coucher avec moi ce soir_?" Foggy asks him, and takes a breath in, short and sudden, like he's trying not to laugh. "Come on, Murdock, that's the only sentence we _need_." He pats Matt's hand, casual and familiar. "We'll crash and burn – but think of the _impact_ crater."

* * *

The smell of cypress is thick in the air, a rich, sharp scent that cuts through the night. The trees line the path here, off the campus green, and Matt can hear the wind sifting through their branches and easing through the slats in the gathered lawn chairs.

"Who decided to have Blues Night in freakin March this year?" Foggy grouses, and there's a swift tug as he pulls the fleece blanket tighter about his shoulders.

The chatter of other students is a background wall of sound: complaints of the cold, excitement over the scheduled performers – watches lifted and checked, times confirmed.

"Someone who's never been to New York in early spring," Matt suggests, wryly, and hunches down in his own jacket, shivering. He reaches beside his chair, to where his bag rests against the chill metal of the folding legs – lets his hand drift down inside until it finds the hard curve of plastic and comes out again with the prize in tow.

"Here," he says, and thrusts the travel mug in Foggy's direction.

"What's this?" Foggy asks, but his hands are on it already, cupping in – skin smoothing over the surface, cherishing the heat.

"Hot cider," Matt tells him, and is rewarded by a noise of delight. Immediately, there's the sound of the cap rotating, and the scent fills the night air – apple and cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg.

"Matt Murdock," Foggy proclaims, reverently, "pillar of humanity and holder of my undying gratitude."

He drinks it like it's ambrosia instead of the cheap store-bought powder mix, and Matt laughs at him, softly, and shakes his head. Halfway through the first band, they scoot the chairs together so they can double up on blankets, and the night seems so warm it might as well be summer.

* * *

"I can't," Matt says. "I can't."

But that's as far as he gets, because the choke-hold cuts off his air again. He sucks a half-breath in, and it's freezing hot like dry ice in his lungs. He can't breathe, and he can't think, and Stick _won't let go_.

"No shit, kid," says a gruff voice. "I knew that already."

Abruptly, Matt can breathe again, but every mouthful of air is tinged in copper. He can taste it on his tongue, and he coughs, trying to get it out of his mouth, out of his _throat_.

He feels the door close as much as he hears it – a quiet click that rings of finality. It turns the blood in him to ice, and he whips toward it, meaning to – something. He doesn't know what. _Something_.

Chase after, this time. Get it right.

"Wait," he calls out. "Wait. I can – I'll do _better_!"

But he can't do better. The world's muffled around him: no sense of balance, vibration, temperature. The sounds that map his world have receded to leave him alone in the dark. He turns to follow after Stick, not certain where the door is – and with the very first step, he feels it giving way beneath his own foot: crumpled paper, a child's gift, such a fragile thing.

" _Matt_ ," says a voice, right by his ear, and he starts awake and bolt upright all at once, gasps like a drowning man coming up for air. It takes him five long seconds before the room filters in: Foggy's mouthwash, cool with the edge of peppermint; the musty smell of the laundry bag by the door, waiting to go out for a wash; the soft _tick_ , _tick_ , _tick_ of Foggy's alarm clock on his bedside table.

"Jesus," Foggy's saying, "You scared the hell out of me. You okay?"

Matt breathes, and he _breathes_ , and he tries to get his own heartbeat under control. It's slamming in his chest like a jackhammer. "I –" he manages, and swallows. "It was – a bad dream."

"No kidding," Foggy agrees. "You were yelling there, at the end."

Shame rushes through Matt, hot and sudden. He feels his face flush – blinks at the prickle at the corners of his eyes. "Sorry," he mumbles. "I, uh – I'll stay up. I didn't mean to wake you."

Foggy snorts, like the answer's offensive somehow. " _Not_ what I was getting at." There's a creak when he settles down on the bed, a firm weight on top of the blankets – and then, with no more warning, he drapes an arm around Matt's shoulder.

The sound of Foggy's heartbeat is low and steady, clearer than a church bell. And Matt – Matt freezes like the world's stopped turning.

It's been too long. It's been _years_ , and Matt's rigid with the surprise of it.

"Hey," Foggy says. "Whatever it was, it's over now."

Matt takes a shuddering breath in, and lets it out – takes another, trying to piece himself back together again. He means to tell Foggy that it wasn't so bad. He can handle this.

But some traitor part of him's already begun to thaw – has let his head settle, instead, against Foggy's shoulder. The pajama top's soft under Matt's cheek, well-worn, and the rhythmic pulse of life is grounding.

They stay like that until Matt's throat doesn't ache – until Matt's eyes are dry at the corners.

They stay like that until Foggy shifts to glance at his face, and evidently approves of what he sees there. "Hey," Foggy says, and nudges him with an elbow. "Dining hall's open in half an hour. Wanna go see what's on the menu?"

Matt closes his eyes for an instant, mind casting back to a morning long ago. "Yeah," he says, when he opens them. "Time to get a move on."


	5. Chapter 5

Author's Notes: Thank you so, so much to everyone who's taken the time to let me know what you thought! It's only my second fic in the fandom, and I feel like it meandered a bit too much, but I'm very grateful to everyone who stuck with me to the end. o/

Matt's prayer here is "An Act of Abandonment," the same one from chapter 2.

* * *

An Act of Abandonment - Chapter 5

* * *

It smells like mildew and sawdust, like the musty rodent scent caught up in the walls. Matt can taste the dust on his tongue when he moves through certain rooms, thick layers long undisturbed, and he knows that the floors are scratched, deep and ugly, from the way the irregularities feel beneath the soles of his shoes. The distant rattle of construction penetrates here, constant and invasive – the sound of a city reborn from the ashes.

But for all its flaws, the office is theirs. Matt's willing to overlook a lot, for that.

In the next room, Foggy's humming, cheerful and wildly out of tune. It's a song Matt doesn't know – or maybe the timing _and_ the pitch are off, and he just can't place it. Paper shuffles; a drawer opens; Foggy's song comes to an abrupt halt.

"Hey, Matt," he calls, and footsteps set out across the floor. There's a spring in the step, a childish bounce of enthusiasm. "Look what I found." Foggy doesn't wait for a reply – just takes hold of Matt's hand, turns it face-up, and pushes something into the palm.

There's no mistaking the hard, brittle shape – a tiny tail, an open mouth, lumpy ridges on the spine. It's one of the little dinosaurs that Foggy insisted should decorate their closet-turned-office at Landman and Zack's.

"You brought them with us?" Matt laughs, half disbelieving.

"Five for you and five for me," Foggy agrees, and hands over the rest of Matt's share. "Not everything about that den of iniquity was terrible."

Matt's thumb traces searchingly along the curves of plastic. "There's something to be said for taking the good parts with us." Foggy's given him the parasaurolophus, voted on one drunken night, unanimously, to be the most badass creature in the set. The memory of that bar is hazy, wrapped in whiskey; if they'd had a reason for the vote or a set of criteria for winning, he can't recall them.

"Hey," Foggy tells him. " _We're_ here. That's, like, 75% of L and Z's best everything."

Mat's lips quirk up at the corner. "Speaking of." The paper bag is on the corner of Matt's desk, the folds of it rough beneath his fingers when he retrieves it: large particles, recycled material. He holds it out to his best friend like an offering, by the twisted-paper handles. "Bagels every day's probably off the table, but I thought we should start on the right foot."

Foggy takes the bag; when he reaches inside, wax paper rustles slithery and dry. The sweet scent of the contents is suddenly stronger: butter and cream, cherries in syrup. Matt can hear flaky segments of dough sloughing off under Foggy's fingers.

"Danishes," his partner exclaims, and the next words are muffled, because Foggy's mouth is full. "You're one of the good ones, buddy." His hand closes on Matt's shoulder, casually affectionate – shakes him, excited, like a puppy with a new toy.

The scent of danish clings to Matt's suit for the rest of the day, faint and honeyed, a reminder of Foggy's touch.

* * *

The door to the office is unlocked again, and Matt grimaces when it swings in with no resistance.

He's not worried about a robbery – they have nothing here worth stealing – but Foggy's snores carry down the hall, peaceful and even, telegraphing his presence.

Matt's glad his partner can still sleep like this, really he is, but Foggy's careless disregard, always so charming before, has become borderline terrifying. Matt's been stabbed and dropped from a roof; broken bones and dislocated a shoulder. He's had two-hundred and seventeen stitches.

The thought of any of those things happening to Foggy turns his stomach to ice.

So Matt closes the door behind him, and he locks it the way he always does. For a moment, standing there in the doorway, he just listens. It reminds him of their room at Columbia, of waking at night to a steady heartbeat and the wind through the cypress out on the campus green.

Everything was so simple then.

When Matt steps into the reception area, the memory's washed away by more recent things: the creak of floorboards, stale coffee, the remnants of Karen's perfume. Foggy's office is different, layered with cheap aftershave and the pastrami from his sandwich three days ago. He hasn't taken out the trash yet, Matt thinks; the smell clings to the plastic wrap.

No wonder they have rats.

It's the coldest part of the night, the hours just before dawn, and the heat's off in the building. There's no hum from the vents, no warm current of air; they try not to use it, because heat is expensive, but that particular resolution seemed like a better idea before Foggy started falling asleep at the office.

Matt sighs, quietly, and he reaches for the hook near the door.

Foggy's jacket is plain cotton, almost five years old. Matt drapes it over his shoulders like a blanket, and the steady rhythm of Foggy's snores continues without a hitch.

He tries not to think how easy it would have been, if someone else had stepped up behind his best friend with a knife, instead.

* * *

Every word from Foggy's mouth is sharp as a broken tooth on battered knuckles.

Matt's not supposed to hear him, but the diatribe slips in anyway – under doors, through vents, agitated and indignant.

"He killed all those people," Foggy's saying. "Good _guys_ , Karen. Officer Sullivan just got married – did you know that?"

Matt hadn't known that.

He runs a shaking hand across his face – stands abruptly, needing to be anywhere but here.

"Matt?" Foggy calls after him. "You running out on us?"

Matt's hand is on the doorknob already, and he doesn't turn. He doesn't trust that his mouth will fake a smile, just now.

"Figured we could do with some lunch," he lies, and leaves them both behind.

* * *

"It is the cross of your choice," Matt prays.

The silk sheets on his bed are smooth like water against his skin. The sensation brings back Stick's derision now, every time he slides beneath the covers.

"I venerate it," Matt whispers. "Nor for anything in the world would I wish that it had not come, since you willed it."

Foggy's convictions are here, too, in the empty chamber of his apartment: coward, and murderer, and terrorist.

Matt's lips pause, caught midway through the supplication. Somewhere, a little girl has begun to scream – the high, wordless shriek of a child wrapped in terror.

The black mask swallows his face like a shroud, and Matt abandons his prayer half-finished. He steps into the frigid night air of a city in pain, and for awhile, there's nothing that matters more.

* * *

The ceiling of Matt's apartment is high.

He knows, because Foggy's words drift up and up, like hymns in a church, toward heaven.

The tone is hard, the accusations harder. Matt's used to both – but not from Foggy. He's never heard that edge of jagged glass beneath a voice so kind.

There's blood on the floor; Matt tastes the copper on his tongue. A segment of the wall is still splintered; so are the floorboards, and Matt's ribs. On the kitchen counter, tucked in by a jar of tea, sits a childish bracelet like a monument to things been and gone.

"I only ever needed my friend," says Foggy – and Matt thinks, with perfect clarity: why did I ever keep my mouth shut?

"Foggy," Matt says, soft and desperate, but Foggy's turned for the door already.

"Foggy," he tries again, voice catching – but those hands, gentle and supportive, yank the door wide open.

When it closes, it makes a sound Matt knows in the deepest parts of himself. It's a sound he still hears, sometimes, in his dreams – soft and absolute, like the last shovelful of dirt on a grave.


End file.
